Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop – Decks, Porches, and Patios

Designers often call these features “outdoor living spaces”; gardeners call them prime territory for plants. Railings create ready-made supports for vines and windowboxes, and paving provides a place to grow creepers and a flat surface for pots and planters. You can surround yourself with herbs and edibles for super-easy harvesting, or indulge yourself with containers full of color and fragrance to provide a private backyard sanctuary.

I realize it’s a little early to show off this year’s displays, but hopefully some of you have kept pictures from previous years. Show us your plants, or show us your construction projects: They’re all fair game!

If you’re new to the Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop, here’s how it works: Write a post on any deck- or patio-related topic on your own blog and leave a link here (already-archived posts count too), or jot down your thoughts in a comment below. At the end of the month, I’ll gather all of the links into one summary post for easy reference. If you’re interested in checking out previous GBD Workshops, you can find them here:

Nan gardens on 4 acres in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In the firm belief that every garden ought to have a pretentious-sounding (or at least pretentious-looking) name, she refers to her home grounds as "Hayefield." There, she experiments with a wide variety of plants and planting styles, from cottage gardens and color-based borders to managed meadows, naturalistic plantings, and veggies--all under the watchful eyes of her two pet alpacas, Daniel and Duncan.

I live and practice landscape design in Northern California.
Our weather is very conducive to year round outdoor living so folks tend to spend a little extra money to create year round outdoor rooms.
I put together a little slide show of some of the patios, porches and decks that we have designed and build in the last few years.

below is the link and slideshow.

enjoy.
Michelle

I’m so glad you could join us this month, Michelle. I’m sure everyone will enjoy browsing your gorgeous photo gallery and get lots of inspiration for their dream patios!
-Nan

Hey Nan! Of course, I love this month’s topic. Can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with! As for next month’s… heh, heh, heh…

If we could only teach Silence how to use a camera, you could show off the Hawk’s Haven deck extravazanga. But I guess we’ll just have to wait a while for that, seeing as how she’s so busy cooking.
-Nan

That patio project I’ve been planning would be great material for this post. I hope I can get the time to work on it. I have some landscape work to do for my brother-in-law’s wedding and another wedding this month so my weekends are almost already spoken for!

If you can get to it this month, that’s great, Dave; if not, you can always write it once things settle down and we can add you to the list later. Good luck with all of your upcoming celebrations! I know you’ve been working hard to get everything perfect.
-Nan

AnnaJune 8, 2008, 3:06 pm

I’m so sorry, I have closed that blog down. I’ll not burden you with details here but did want you to know the link is broken.
Thank you. I got some lovely views from this post. I do a couple of other photo accounts if you would like me to re-do this post? It will not be in blog form–but a picture show.

Oh, yes, Anna – if you have a chance, that would be super. I’ll delete the old link. I totally respect your new direction, and I’m glad we still have the chance to interact with you through comments.
-Nan

Sign me up, Nan. I’ve posted about the wants, needs, desires, hopes, wishes and dreams of the ultimate deck and what I ended up with:

Great, Jim – thanks so much! We’ve seen pictures of various parts of the space in other posts of yours, but now we have a really clear idea of how the whole space works. All of your careful planning definitely paid off with a fantastic deck.
-Nan

Hi – I’ve just discovered you via Blotanical and this month’s theme is ideal for me to start introducing my garden. Do have a look at:

Greetings from across the pond!

A double welcome to you, VP, to GGW and to the GBDW! I’m so glad that you found us (hooray for Blotanical), and I thank you for taking the time to participate this month. I hope you’ll join us again.
-Nan

Nan, I got in earlier this time! I’ve written so many times about how much I love my patio, but I took some new photos on Sunday and wrote some more about why I love it so much:

Super, Heather! Thanks for the garden tour, and for joining us again this month. And, er, good luck with those neighbors. I hope they take a summer vacation so you can enjoy spending some quiet time on your patios.
-Nan